The Dark Knight (2008)

One year has passed since Batman (Christian Bale) stopped Ra's Al Ghul's plan to have Gotham eliminated and the mysterious disappearance of Dr. Jonathan Crane AKA the Scarecrow, and after the city was nearly plundered with his toxins. Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) and his vigilante alter-ego the Batman (Christian Bale), continue the seemingly endless effort to bring order to Gotham, with the help of Lt. James Gordon (Gary Oldman) and newly appointed District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), a new white knight in Gotham. But a new threat has now emerged into the streets. Hilarity ensues as The Dark Knight (Christian Bale) faces a rising psychopathic criminal called The Joker (Heath Ledger), whose eerie grin, laughter, and inhuman morality makes him as dangerous as what he has yet to unleash. It becomes an agenda to Batman (Christian Bale) to stop the mysterious Joker (Heath Ledger) at all costs, knowing that both of them (Christian Bale and Heath Ledger) are on opposite sides. One has no method at all and seeks to see the world plunge into the fire he has yet to light and the other is the Joker (Heath Ledger) [Okay, Just kidding]. One represents the symbol of hope and uses his own shadow to bring the peace and order he has yet to accomplish doing.

Trivia: This is the first Batman film to not have "Batman" in the title. As a joke, one bat suit was made with nipples, as in Batman & Robin. It was presented to Christian Bale as the real bat suit, but he knew instantly it was a joke, having seen a few design pictures during preproduction. He did pose for some publicity photos in the "nipple" suit. When asked, "Why Heath Ledger as the Joker?" Christopher Nolan said, "Because he's fearless." While filming on the streets of Chicago in April 2007, the filming was carried out under the fake movie title "Rory's First Kiss" named after Christopher Nolan's son Rory. Fliers regarding the filming carried this fake title, complete with a fake "RFK" logo for the movie and an address for the film's production offices. To prepare for his role as the Joker, Heath Ledger lived alone in a hotel room for a month, formulating the character's psychology, posture and voice (the last one he found most difficult to do). He started a diary, in which he wrote the Joker's thoughts and feelings to guide himself during his performance. He was also given Alan Moore's comic "Batman: The Killing Joke" and "Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth" to read. Ledger also took inspiration from A Clockwork Orange's Alex and Sid Vicious. It's Sir Michael Caine's opinion that Heath Ledger beat the odds and topped Jack Nicholson's Joker from Batman: "Jack was like a clown figure, benign but wicked, maybe a killer old uncle. He could be funny and make you laugh. Heath's gone in a completely different direction to Jack, he's like a really scary psychopath. He's a lovely guy and his Joker is going to be a hell of a revelation in this picture." Caine bases this belief on a scene where the Joker pays a visit to Bruce Wayne's penthouse. He'd never met Ledger before, so when Ledger arrived and performed he gave Caine such a fright he forgot his lines. Bruce Wayne develops and wears a new Batsuit in the film. This Batsuit was an improvement on the outfit from Batman Begins, and made Christian Bale more comfortable and agile in his performance. It was constructed from 200 unique pieces of rubber, fibreglass, metallic mesh, and nylon (producing an impression of sophisticated technology), with elastic banding added for tightening the costume to fit Bale. The gauntlets had their razors made retractable and able to be fired. The suit's cowl was based on a motorcycle helmet and separated from the neck piece, allowing Bale to move his head left/right/up/down, and comes equipped with white eye lenses for when Batman turns on Bat-sonar. The Joker make-up was composed of three pieces of stamped silicone, which took less than an hour to apply to Heath Ledger on each day of shooting. Ledger described it as "new technology which is much quicker to apply than regular prosthetics"; he felt he was not wearing any make-up at all. In only 6 days of release, The Dark Knight made more money than Batman Begins entire domestic run.

Geez it has been a long time since I wrote a review. I am going to save comments about Heath Ledger until later. Currently The Dark Knight sits on the IMDb Top 250 Movies list at the lofty position of 3. This is actually a slip for it since from the first days of the movie it sat at number 1. So is it the best movie ever made? Probably not. But it was damn good and fun to watch. The length got a little long towards the end but though I thought about it, I didn't look at my watch. There was action through out and they kept you at the edge of your seat. The actors. Christian Bale turned in a servicable Batman. Gary Oldman as Detective Gordon was good. Maggie Gyllenhaal was way better then Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes. Aaron Eckhart turned in a good Harvey Dent/Two Face. Which brings me to a point. The two villians. Batman movies in the past have suffered from multiple villians. Heck, comic book movies in general usually do (See Spider Man 3) and this movie is no different. If I could have gotten rid of anything it would have been Two Face. Don't get me wrong, the movie did a whole lot better with the two then the franchise had earlier and Two Face's story worked in well with the rest but this movie was all Joker and could have easiler been only Joker and survived just as well. Two Face could have been saved for the next movie. So this brings me back to Heath Ledger. This is his movie, don't even think otherwise. He ownes the movie from start to finish. The scenes with him just seem better. I was waiting for him to come back on screen. Jack Nicolson owned the Joker back in 89, but Heath Ledger performed a hostile takeover. The darkness of these movies compared to the Batmans in the 90's also really helped. Heath got to play an infinitely scarrier Joker then Jack did. It is a shame Ledger passed away. The Joker could have definitely been in another movie.

By the way, I actually got to see this with a bunch of friends in a fancy old style theater (with decorations and stuff from a bygone era) and an organist in Oakland, California. It was an awesome way to see it. And I plan to take my brother to the Imax version sometime soon. So I got that going for me, which is nice.